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Schools out for junk vending

VENDING machines selling fizzy drinks, chocolates and crisps are to be banned from the country’s state schools under laws to improve children’s diets.

Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, has decided that not only meals but also the machines will be covered by nutritional standards for school food. Junk food and sweets currently sold in the machines will have to be replaced by fruit, milk and bottled water.

Snack and drink manufacturers had hoped that vending machines would escape the crackdown, but the school meals review panel, set up by Kelly to examine nutritional standards, has decided that “healthy eating” rules must apply to all food and drink available at school.

The panel says that the move will require legislation. “Unless you stop selling the highly branded sugary snacks and drinks,” one panel member said, “they will always be chosen by children. You have to remove them if you’re going to